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Family ties bind Newton to Beavers By Don Hunt It's hard to pass up a full ride to Stanford, Washington or Nebraska, but when it came time to pull the trigger, Roseburg High tight end Joe Newton decided to stay close to home. Newton, the most highly-recruited player in Indians coach Thurman Bell's 31 years at the school, gave an oral commitment to Oregon State last week. "Joe's very close to his family - I guess you could say he's a homebody," Bell said. The 6-foot-8, 240-pound Newton had narrowed his choices to OSU, Oregon, Stanford and Washington last month when a call came into Bell's office. A Nebraska coach was on the line, offering to fly Newton to Lincoln for a visit. "That was flattering," Bell said, "but Joe turned it (the visit) down because he just doesn't want to be that far from home." Newton vacillated between OSU and Oregon, finally settling on the Beavers. "Oregon's big win in the Fiesta Bowl made things even tougher," Bell said. "Joe had a real tough time saying no to (Ducks coach Mike) Bellotti." What swung Newton to Corvallis, Bell said, was his family ties to the school: His father graduated from OSU, and his grandfather taught there. And even though the Beavers suffered through a 5-6 season in 2001, they've got some of the best returning talent in the Pac-10 Conference and are only a year removed from a Fiesta Bowl victory of their own. Newton is also a standout basketball player and may attempt both sports at OSU, Bell said. Newton, who carries a 3.74 grade-point average in the classroom, won't officially sign a letter of intent until early next month. No one told Tim Sam it would be quite like this. A little over two months into his first basketball head coaching job, Sam has had to endure several injuries to key players, a couple of illnesses and suspensions to point guard Brian Weeks, shooting guard Zach Taylor and power forward Travis Poulton. Weeks and Poulton are in the middle of four-game suspensions for disciplinary reasons while Taylor missed two games after head-butting a Klamath Union player in Klamath Falls on Jan. 7. None of the three will be in uniform when the Black Tornado plays host to Grants Pass tonight. Taylor is eligible to return but is being held out for a longer period by his family for reasons other than the incident in Klamath Falls, Sam said. The last thing a first-year head coach needs is a three-pronged headache such as this. The Tornado, thought to be a state playoff contender at the start of the season, is now 1-3 in the Southern Oregon Conference with the unenviable task of facing one of the better teams in the state - Grants Pass - at considerably less than full-strength. One can't help but think that Sam is aching a bit on the inside. He took the job with the idea that his players would work their tails off, have fun doing it and keep their noses clean. But if Sam is frustrated, he's not showing it. "All this (the suspensions) does is give other players opportunities," says Sam, pointing in particular to guards Aaron Barlow and Jeff Deline and forwards Brett Timmerman and Beau Hovland. "Of course we'd like to be winning more, but I think we're making progress. And I think we're setting the table for a bright future." Sam has reason for his optimism. The freshman team is 12-0 and has romped over every opponent except South Medford. The junior varsity squad has a five-game win streak. And while the varsity team may be laboring at the moment, Sam believes it can still make the playoffs. "There's a lot of season left," he says. Ashland boys basketball coach John Skinner can appreciate Sam's situation. Skinner dismissed starting point guard Lance Streng for the rest of the season last week after Streng picked up two technical fouls and was ejected from a game against Crater. The outburst was the latest of many for the Ashland player, Skinner said, and the coach felt he had no other choice but to send him on his way. "It's just an emotional thing that he has," Skinner said. "He won't back down. He and I talked before the season about how other players were going to bait him, and they did. "It's unfortunate, but the rest of the kids on the team were affected and something had to be done." Skinner has known Streng since the coach moved to Ashland five years ago. "He was my neighbor," said Skinner, whose team is 1-3 in the SOC and 5-6 overall heading into tonight's game at Roseburg. "I've been friends with the whole family." Reach reporter Don Hunt at 776-4469, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.